From: Alwin K.
Message: 17982
Date: 2003-01-23
> Hi Folks=== message truncated ===
>
> Whilst trolling the Internet looking for Linear A
> and Semitic
> languages I came on the following from Virginia
> Hicks. It seems to
> suggest that Linear A was a very early form of
> Indo-European existing
> mid-way between Greek and Anatolian.
>
> "For instance, his [i.e. Bernal's] theory about
> Athena=Neit sounds
> good until it is recognized that Athena shows up in
> the Linear A
> tablets written by the Minoans. She shows either as
> A-ta-no-dju-wa-ja
> (nominative) or A-ta-no-dju-wa-e (vocative). Not too
> surprisingly for
> a people who Lucy Goodison showed conclusively have
> a sun goddess,
> her name transparently means sun (atano- cf Luwian
> astanus) goddess
> (djuwaja, cf Mycenaean and later Greek diwia). (In
> case there is a
> question about sign #88 = dju, some of the Linear A
> name lists
> alternate forms of the same name Te-tu and Te-dju.)
>
> I don't want to sound totally unsympathetic to Cyrus
> Gordon, Martin
> Bernal and others who have tried to find a Semitic
> language on Crete
> at that early time. Gordon recognized that the Bible
> (Amos 9:7, for
> instance) says the Philistines were descended from
> the Minoans, and
> then made a wrong turn in assuming the Philistines
> started out
> speaking a Semitic language. Since later studies
> have shown that the
> Philistine language must have been Indo-European,
> then Bernal takes
> another wrong turn and assumes that the Minoans
> spoke a Semitic
> language, and the Philistines must have been Greek.
> (Never mind that
> the Philistine name Padi shows up in the Linear A
> tablets in a
> recognizable dative form (Pa-de), whereas when the
> same name shows up
> in Linear B it is spelled differently on each of the
> 3 occasions
> where it occurs (and it refers to someone at
> Knossos, I believe)).
> The Philistine name Ikausu shows up in Linear A
> (I-ku-su) and not at
> all in Linear B....
>
> The Minoan language seems to be about mid-way
> between Hittite and
> Luwian, on the one hand, and Greek on the other.
> Such inscriptions as
> to-sa pu-re-ja (so much tribute, or so many
> contributions) on an
> altar inscribed centuries before the Greeks showed
> up on Crete are
> startling. Then, just when it is safe to assume the
> language is
> related to Greek, then an inscription appears, like
> Si-ma i-ja-t(e),
> Sima made the pot the inscription was written on.
> The language seems
> to show gender much like early Greek, with feminine
> nouns (and neuter
> plurals?) ending in a, masculine ending in u or o.
> The verbs, even
> when they are based on Greek roots, often take
> Hittite endings. The
> mix appears most clearly in the late writing on the
> Psychro stone -
> epioi zetante Inete par Siphai (these words were
> taught (cf dateomai)
> to Ineti by Sipha. Epioi is most closely related to
> epeos (Greek).
> Then the ending -ante on the verb looks too close to
> -anda endings in
> Hittite. Ineti wrote his name in the late Minoan
> script under his
> words - I-ne-ti, so Inete must be the dative
> expected to follow a
> passive verb. Par is a perfectly good Indo-European
> preposition which
> occurs also in Linear A (pa-r(a) Tu-ru-nu-i-me).
>
> Incidentally, the Philistine word for "helmet" shows
> up in the Hebrew
> as qoba - related to Hittite kupahhi."
>
> Also of relevance is her article
>
>
>
> Minoan Origins of Athena
>
>
> By
> Virginia Hicks
> B.A. (Class.)
>
> Because of the purely accounting nature of the
> Linear B inscriptions
> that have come down to the present, it is necessary
> to go to the
> Minoan inscriptions of earlier centuries in order to
> understand the
> Minoan elements which the Mycenaeans adopted and
> handed down, however
> changed, to the later Greeks. The Mycenaeans already
> worshiped Zeus,
> Apollo and other gods of their own, as evidenced in
> several Linear B
> tablets. However, they also adopted the main goddess
> of the Minoan
> pantheon.
>
> A-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ja (Mistress Athena) is referred to
> in the Knossos
> Linear B text V 2, cited by John Chadwick (Chadwick
> 1976; p. 88).
> (The full text refers to Athena, Enualios which is
> perhaps an early
> name for Ares, Paiawon which is perhaps an
> alternative name for
> Apollo,, and Poseidon.) This is the Mycenaean
> attempt to translate
> the name of the Minoan goddess, A-ta-no-dju-wa-ja.
> This name means
> Sun Goddess - the prefix atano is related to Luwian
> astanus = sun,
> and the final part is the Minoan spelling of what we
> know from Greek
> as Diwia (Mycenaean di-u-ja or di-wi-ja). The
> Mycenaeans even kept
> the Minoan word order at this early time; by the
> time of Homer, the
> name was Hellenized further, to Potni= Athenaie.
>
> Concerning the connection she noted between the
> Minoans, worship and
> the sun, Lucy Goodison writes:
>
> Thus, a closer look at early Cretan art suggests
> that the sun may
> have been one of the most common symbols. Many
> sun-like designs
> appear on seals (including motifs like the swastika
> which were used
> in other cultures to represent the sun) but scholars
> have been
> reluctant to connect these designs in any way with
> the sun. One
> problem is that it is hard to be sure which circular
> and radiant
> designs were actually intended to represent the sun,
> but we can get
> an idea from comparisons with contemporary Egyptian
> and Near Eastern
> solar symbols - which the Cretans knew - and from
> later Aegean
> pictures of the sun and moon together.
>
> In several instances in the early Cretan material
> the sun appears to
> be playing a part in a cult scene, and in almost
> every case it is
> linked with a woman or women. In one seal engraving
> two women appear
> to be dancing to the sun.... An interesting clue is
> that the position
> of the arms on this seal is identical to the
> contemporary Egyptian
> gesture of sun worship. In his huge book, The Palace
> of Minos, the
> archaeologist Arthur Evans actually described Figure
> 4 as depicting
> >long-robed women...adoring a rayed solar symbol,=
> but he never
> incorporated such activities into his explanation of
> Cretan religion
> as a whole. (Goodison 1972; pp. 2)
>
> To further show the connection in the Aegean of the
> Early Minoan
> period between the female, the sun and the holy,
> Lucy Goodison
> describes the so-called frying-pan objects, mostly
> found in the
> Cyclades, a neighboring culture that at times
> influenced and at times
> was influenced by the Minoans:
>
>